Tuesday, January 26, 2010

TV Adaptation of "The Walking Dead" Sounds Promising

The site Coming Attractions has posted an exclusive review of the pilot script for the upcoming TV adaptation of the comic series The Walking Dead. I was excited enough at the prospect of finally getting a zombie-themed TV show, but from the sounds of the review, this will exceed my expectations and may actually garner a larger audience than just the horror fans out there. I've included just a blurb from the full review below for those who are pressed for time, but if you have the time, I suggest you go and read the entire review, it's pretty damn good.

From Coming Attractions:

If you were a fan of the comic book before, now you know that the pilot's set-up of the Walking Dead story follows a similar arc as the comic's but it's not exact. I'd guess that about half to two-thirds of the first two issues are contained in the pilot episode but there's also new material. For instance, we now get to see the incident that brought Grimes to the hospital (the comic begins with him coming to in his deserted room) and there's some changes with what happens when he is in Atlanta that differ with the comic's depiction of events. Darabont seems to know what he's doing and in the places where he chooses to include new material, with his changes/additions better serving the story and bring more characterization (at the beginning and middle) and intensity (at the end). In particular there was a new revelation concerning the plight of the other father that Grimes finds living in his old neighborhood that's not in the comic. This new material really underscored the sense of what kind of deep and unsettling world the survivors are now living in.

Darabont's also done a solid job of knowing what works from The Walking Dead and sometimes reproducing it exactly in his screenplay, such as the case with the bicycle Grimes comes across and the reaction of its former owner to the officer's arrival.

The Walking Dead pilot doesn't sell out its concept for the sake of finding a wider audience. This is a show set in a world where families have died and the survivors haven't had the time to cope with their losses, much less come to terms with civilization collapsing around them. Knowing the course that Kirkman's comic book takes and now after seeing how Darabont's chose to make the pilot more of a drama than a flat-out horror action show, AMC's Walking Dead has fantastic potential. The Walking Dead could even do for horror what the new Battlestar Galactica did for science fiction. Cross your fingers and hope that the show comes together as well as it did on the page.

And a side note: Since this takes place in Atlanta, I'm assuming they'll be doing quite a bit of filming around here, so if you know the casting agency working this show, let me know, because I really really really want to be a part of this!!